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I really like this week’s meme:
Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (ot, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion?Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?
I am currently a member of two face-to-face book clubs. The first one consists of members of my church, though we rarely read religious books. The book selection process in this club is very casual to the point of almost dysfunction. People are supposed to come to each meeting with selections for the next meeting. Then we all vote. The other book club’s selection process is simple. We rotate months. In May, for example, I choose the book, let everyone know what the selection was, and then hosted.
As for my enjoyment of a book, I don’t think being “forced” to read a book for book club automatically affects how I feel about it. I love to read, and I love to talk about what I read, so I’m pretty available for whatever selection is chosen. I do think that book clubs are good for my reading habits in that I read books I wouldn’t have otherwise read. Plus, I just love getting together with other readers. I look forward to it every month.
Since I can’t consistently participate in The Sunday Salon because Sundays are generally pretty hectic, I thought I would pipe in today with a couple of book piles.
I made a little trip to the library yesterday and came away with more books than I can possibly read in the next three weeks. (Typical. At least I managed to avoid purchasing any books from the book sale.) Good thing there is a liberal renewal policy. Anyway, to the right is a picture of my loot. I already cruised through The Invention of Hugo Cabret yesterday and am looking forward to devouring the rest of the stack. Stardust and Heart of Darkness are both books I’m reading for the Novella Challenge. The Post-Birthday World and Diary of a Bad Year are both books I picked up because of reviews I read on book blogs here and the sidebar here.
This second picture is a medley of books I’m currently reading and/or recently acquired. I recently purchased and am slowly making my way through Dracula. I’ve been reading one poem a day from the Billy Collins collection as part of my Poetry Tuesday resolution. Pictures from Italy and Farworld: Water Keep are both ARC’s I need to get through so I can post reviews. The rest of the stack is the loot I ordered from Amazon last week.
I love books!
This week’s meme further explores reading:
Have your book-tastes changed over the years? More fiction? Less? Books that are darker and more serious? Lighter and more frivolous? Challenging? Easy? How-to books over novels? Mysteries over Romance?
Of course my book-tastes have changed over the years. Or, at least, I hope they have. I read every Babysitter’s Club book, every Sweet Valley High and Sweet Valley Middle School book, every Boxcar Children book, every Saddle Club book. Then I moved on to every John Grisham, every Mary Higgins Clark, and many Danielle Steele’s. Intermixed with the above, of course, were gems of both classical and contemporary natures. Still.
Now, I prefer literary fiction over most other genres, but I like to mix it up too. Nothing is off limits except perhaps self-help. Sorry, I just can’t do it. I hope that my literary tastes continue to expand and develop, since that is one of the many reasons I read.
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: In honor of Professor Foster’s impending new book, How to Read Novels Like a Professor, I’m doing a casual rereading of the original. What a lovely book. The Introduction captures, for me, the feeling of sitting in an actual college literature class.
The Book of Lost Things: I requested this book from my library on the recommendation of several bloggers. The beginning of it just breaks your heart. I’m now only about 100 pages in and the plot is quickly moving towards fantasy – what with the weird wolf/humans created by Little Red Riding Hood’s more illicit activities appearing on the scene. I’ll be posting a review of this pretty soon, I’m sure.
Bible: Still plugging away at Numbers. And, for those of you wondering, the numbering of the people ends around chapter ten. Now we are into a lot of whining and striking by lightening.
The New Yorker: I currently have the May 26, 2008 issue stashed in my purse. Not too much has grabbed my attention as yet. I’m halfway through a short story by John Updike called “The Full Glass.” The story didn’t quite capture my full attention. We’ll see if the ending can rescue it. I also skimmed through an article by Jeffrey Toobin on a McCain Court. I was a bit offended by its extreme liberal tone, so Mr. Toobin lost a little of his credibility (earned by most of The Nine) with me.
BOOK CLUB REPORT
Both of my book clubs met last week. First up was a small book club that consists of myself and two other women. We read The Alchemist. I think everyone liked it. Discussion centered more around the individual ramifications of the message, rather than the writing itself. I like the concept of a Personal Legend. The problem is that everyone’s Personal Legend is, well, personal.
Next up was my regular book club. I hosted. About five people attended. We read The Shell Seekers. Unfortunately, I read the book back in January and had loaned out my copy, so I couldn’t review. I wasn’t much help in the limited discussion that ensued. Though I wasn’t much help on specifics, this much I know: READ THE SHELL SEEKERS! Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale is up for June.
This week’s meme:
What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books, audiobooks — which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be “reading” — why? If something isn’t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the sound of is in a format you don’t consider to be reading? Share your personal definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance.
All of the above examples are things that people can actually, physically read. However, in my opinion, for something to be literary “reading,” it should be a novel, short story, or poetry. I have a hard time grouping audio books and comic books into this group because, while valuable, these produce a different experience than actually spending time with the printed word. In my mind, if those things were “reading,” then watching a movie with subtitles would also have to be in that category.
All of the above being said, I am a firm believer in the power of reading in whatever form. If cookbooks speak to you, read them. If comics speak to you, read them. If you need/want to experience reading through audiobooks, do it. Perhaps the above will gateway into more serios “reading.” However, in any form, I believe that reading enhances the experience of life.
Since I haven’t finished a book in the last few days and I have an itching to post, I’m going to write about my recent reading activities.
Bible: I’m currently working my way ever so slowly through the Old Testament at the rate of one chapter per day. I recently made it to Numbers. So far there is a lot of counting and census taking. I’m pretty sure that’s where the name of the book came in. My only question is how the numbering is going to be sustained for the next thirty chapters. Stay tuned.
So Brave, Young, and Handsome: Leif Enger’s latest book has recently been relegated to the bottom of the TBR pile. Please don’t think that it has anything to do with the quality of the book. Instead, it has been relegated only because I purchased it and I have a pile of library books to get through before the weekend. With that as a preface, the first one hundred pages were compelling, if a bit slow. More on that soon.
The Gathering: One of the library books with a deadline, this book, which I have heard about in almost every possible medium, is amazingly readable. Though depressing and pretty crude, I am fascinated by Veronica and her Irish Catholic world. Veronica is probably the most disillusioned, cynical heroine I’ve ever read.
The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Ironically, this is the book I read most nights right before I turn out the light. I like to read one or two of the prompts and ruminate on them whilst I fall asleep. The prompts in this book are original and thought provoking. I’d recommend it for writers and for anyone who needs a good bedtime story.
An interesting reading journal guide can be found here.
Today’s prompt:
Do your reading habits change in the Spring? Do you read gardening books? Even if you don’t have a garden? More light fiction than during the Winter? Less? Travel books? Light paperbacks you can stick in a knapsack?
Or do you pretty much read the same kinds of things in the Spring as you do the rest of the year?
I haven’t yet determined exactly the cause of my reading habits. For the most part, I think, I generally read the same kinds of things in the spring as I do in the rest of the year. I’m not a gardener (blackest thumb, though I try occasionally), so no new spring reading there. (Also, I’ve noticed that my gardening acquaintances tend to read about gardening in the winter. They pick seeds out of catalog’s and whatnot.) Anyhow, as a fiction aficionado, I have noticed more of a willingness to try out the nonfiction in the winter. Also, I probably give in to some more “beach reads” in the spring/summer—probably more as a result of the excellent marketing on the part of my local bookstores than my shifting moods.
I’ve lately been reading Emma, by Jane Austen. (Though I was temporarily derailed when I found Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos in the bargain bin at Borders.) Anyway, I started reading Emma in earnest because of the PBS Masterpiece Classic series “The Complete Jane Austen.” I have now viewed at least one movie version of all six of Jane Austen’s principal novels, though I’d only previously read Pride & Prejudice. And, I must admit, viewing the movie version of Emma before reading the book has helped immensely. Actually, I’m not sure if it is the movie itself that is helpful or just knowing the progression of the plot. In any case, I find myself reading more closely, picking up more textual clues about people’s true characters and Emma’s subtle, but important, misperceptions.
This experience with Emma made me reevaluate my reading skills and methods. I’m a compulsive, rapid reader. I tend to read and dump. (Likely a product of college English classes where professors would schedule a mere week for the reading of Anna Karenina or Dante’s Inferno.) I generally don’t read closely. Having just completed a book, I probably couldn’t tell you what color hair the heroine has. I jump over “unimportant” details like that, partly because I like to imagine the characters myself and partly because I’m in a hurry. I think miss a great deal in my hurry.
All of this reflection made me recall a chapter in Francine Prose’s book Reading Like a Writer on close reading. In the very first chapter, Ms. Prose advocates getting back to reading basics and focusing on close reading, paying attention to the words and sentences and paragraphs.
Several websites supply variations on the theme of “how to conduct a close reading.” See websites here and here and here and here. Though lists and suggestions are a good place to start, the lists, I think, are a little too narrow. Most of them anticipate close reading conducted on short works of fiction like poetry or excerpts of longer works. It seems to me that close reading should be applied to all kinds of reading: literature, poetry, newspapers, technical manuals. Rather than a technique used in English papers, close reading should be a method, a form inseparable from our reading.
This definition of close reading sums it up for me: a method in which you pay close attention to a text, either in order to observe striking features generally or in order to answer specific questions concerning that text.
In light of the above, I hereby resolve to amend my reading habits by:
- Slowing down and enjoying the experience, the moments, of reading
- Reading with a pencil in hand
- Looking up words I don’t know
- Pausing occasionally to contemplate what I’ve just read
